Posts from — August 2005

Jim was in the hospital again yesterday to get the old pacemaker out (skipping long story about why they had to put it in the other side in the first place). Everything went pretty well except while taking out the old leads, the new atrial lead was knocked out of place. They had to open the incision from a week ago that was already healing so well to reposition the lead. On the upside, they weren’t getting the best signals from the atrial lead the first time, but now they are much better. We got to come home pretty quickly and he slept of the anesthesia the rest of the day. He did sleep in this morning, but he is amazing…he went to work! I can’t imagine how sore his chest must be now with two incisions. I hope we don’t need to go to the hospital again now for a LONG time!

As I’ve said before I HATE to :frog:, (I guess there are no knitters that like to frog though, are there??? If so, maybe a little :crazy:?) but this time there is just no way around it. Inches and inches to undo and of course I didn’t notice until I had already done the bind off and began blocking. Notice the large black circle…that is where I SHOULD have quit the cable. I wish it was one of those things that isn’t noticeable but it is where I would sew the seam for the sleeve. I can’t very well sew a cable edging, now can I? My demise was Law and Order SVU. I need to pay a little more attention if I am going to knit in front of the television!

The Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Superchunky I bought for 40% off with no particular project in mind was perfect for this. The fabric feels great and seems like it will wear well. I got really lucky with the amount too…I just have enough of the last ball for the sleeve seams.

After knitting socks on DPN’s I wanted to try doing it on circulars. Since I have already knitted using two circulars for small diameter knitting, I thought I’d try the magic loop instead. I’ll show you what it looks like so far and give my first impressions.

CONS:

PROS:

The concept is pretty much the same as knitting on two circulars with a little more shuffling involved. Also, the needle I have is 42″…I think (I know it wasn’t in the 50’s which I looked for) but I would definitely recommend the longer needle. The 42″ is the minimum I would use, due to the way it sits while you are working on it. An extra 8-12 inches to work with would be helpful.

Sedie has tagged me. Idiosyncrasies…what? I don’t have any of those!:rofl: Seriously though, I thought this was going to be easy but it’s not. I have been thinking about it since yesterday afternoon and I really haven’t come up with anything. Does that mean a) I really don’t have an idiosyncrasies or b) I’m in totally denial and so idiosyncratic in everything that I do that it all just seems completely normal to me?

Some people list such things as: can’t stand feet, not able to go to bed without a shower, being scared of chickens, dislike of crumbly food items, and being bothered by eating noises. I too must have something like this, right? :scratch:Yet, I am still unable to name even one.

So, I decided to do some research (I do a lot of research. It is rare for me to do/say/buy/think/etc. almost anything without having done some research to back it up. Idiosyncrasy? Maybe.). I think answer b is probably correct. What kind of person other than one who is idiosyncratic would actually go to the Merriam-Webster online to seek out a better definition (even though I already KNOW what it means) of the word and for that matter, give the link to the Merriam website when probably everyone in the world already knows it? Although the complete definition didn’t really help me think of anything specific // (1 a : a peculiarity of constitution or temperament : an individualizing characteristic or quality b : individual hypersensitiveness (as to a drug or food) 2 : characteristic peculiarity (as of temperament); broadly : ECCENTRICITY) // the synonym “eccentricity” certainly gave more to ponder. Eccentric: from Greek ekkentros, from ex out of + kentron center 1 a : deviating from an established or usual pattern or style b : deviating from conventional or accepted usage or conduct especially in odd or whimsical ways.

I could easily describe my self as “out of center” and having conduct “especially odd or whimsical”. However, ask for specific things that I do idiosyncratically and I still have no response.

So, my list of 5 idiosyncrasies? I guess for now that doesn’t exist. Knowing my slightly eccentric self, I am likely to keep thinking about this for a while. Maybe I’ll come up with something…eventually

I had an extremely successful trip to the rotten produce store yesterday. No, that’s not it’s real name…it’s actually called Garden Fresh Produce, which sounds much more appealing, right? It’s old name though was Discount Produce…thus the “rotten produce” reference. I am so glad they got rid of the “discount” part. I always thought that was the stupidest name. Anyway, much beautiful produce to be had which resulted in a most delicious dinner. Tomato and cucumber salad with a delicious extra virgin olive oil from the Olive Press, bi-color corn with a bit of sweet butter, roasted Yukon gold potatoes with the olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh herbs from my little herb patch, roasted red peppers (4 large ones for 99 cents…the produce store does still have a true “discount” section with produce that needs to be used within a couple of days), teriyaki pork tenderloin and wine for only $2.99…not too bad either!

I began the matching shrug for the completed tube top.

The annoying part? The tube top is too loose! If I would have moved even an inch in the picture, you would be seeing much more than you ever wanted to in a knitting blog! The gauge called for is 13×20 in st st and 18×22 in 2×2 rib. I chose the 36″ bust (smaller than what I needed) based on previous experience. Although I did not use exactly the same yarn, my gauge was 14×20 which over the 122 cast on stitches should have taken the measurement down to 35 1/4″ or so. My 2×2 gauge was 16×22 which is a little off, but the whole purpose of rib is stretch anyway, so I wasn’t worried about that part at all. I can’t believe the top part is too big! I even tried wet blocking which can make things bigger, but what I hoped to do what stretch it out lengthwise a bit so that the width would shrink. Guess I wasn’t aggressive enough with stretching the length because if anything, it seems just a little bigger in the width. Arrgh! Normally I wouldn’t mind too much giving this to someone else, but i REALLY like it and :frog: is just not an option. Guess I’ll have to come up with some kind of elastic trick unless I get some other ideas from my fellow knitters!

This Orange Glo hardwood floor refinisher is awesome! It only takes an hour to dry and makes your wood floor look much newer.
I’m not sure if you’ll be able to tell from the pics, but the floor is so shiny and pretty. We’ve had it for about 6 years now and with dogs and cats it gets pretty scratchy. Instead of doing a full refinish…this is very easy…just like mopping. :heart: this stuff!

Ok, the scoop on the aforementioned hospital knitting extravaganza. It all began at 3 a.m. when Jim woke me up (we didn’t need to leave until 4:45). To tell me he couldn’t walk.

During the week he had complained of knee pain /weakness and felt better on pain meds. That was, until Thursday evening. On his way home from work, he felt something in his knee “snap”. He was able to limp home and still able to walk for the rest of the evening. Since he was having surgery the next morning, we didn’t’ think he should take any pain medicine. BIG mistake. He was in so much pain that he didn’t sleep all night. He barely made it out of the car and into the hospital, but somehow managed to shuffle along. When he finally got checked in they did give him some morphine, but wasn’t working very well (???!!!???).

When the doctor arrived he examined the knee and decided there was no risk in continuing with the scheduled procedure (more information in this post. And so it began…

This was supposed to be a relatively quick surgery commencing at 7:30 a.m., finishing around 9. It was 11:45 before the doctor finally came out to talk to me and 12:30 before I got to see him. Meanwhile, my friend L showed up to sit with me for a while around 9. She took me to get a bagel at Bruegger’s (a block away) which later turned out to be a blessing. It was nice to have someone else there to take my mind off things. Another great thing about :knitting:…you can socialize while you do it.

Overall, the surgery went fine. However, due to the multiple ablations in his upper atrium, they had some trouble getting a good signal to the pacemaker…that is why it took so much longer than expected. I’m glad they took the time though to do it right the first time.

When I finally got to see Jim again, I was amazed to hear him say that his leg still hurt. I thought for sure with all the IV drugs he’d get some relief. His surgeon had arranged for him to go down to the emergency room after surgery so someone could look at his leg. An ultrasound, an x-ray, a set of crutches and 5 hours later he was released. No, we still don’t know what is wrong with his leg.:cuss: All they can determine from those tests is that he doesn’t have a clot (a risk, since he had to go off of warfarin before the surgery and that there is no bone damage. Dr. Cheryl (moi) has narrowed it down to a tendon rupture or ligament damage. Fortunately he has a great relationship with a very nice doctor who took his call today who has agreed to see him Monday. He isn’t an orthopedist, but should be able to further narrow the diagnosis.

This is the funniest part, although certainly not funny at the time. They wheeled him out to the car when we left and he was barely able to get in. So guess what? When we got home, should it have surprised us that he couldn’t get out of the car (actually an SUV so that did help some)???!!! Not for a lack of trying…about 3 attempts with 20 minute breaks in between. Finally it dawned on us that a friend of mine who lives around the corner had a wheelchair for a recent injury. I called to find out it had been borrowed from someone else. Her husband told me though that the medical supply place just 2 miles away from our house rented wheelchairs. At the time, I thought he was nuts. No way they were going to be open at 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night. I was glad I was wrong! So back home we went where Jim was able to get out of the SUV seat and into the wheelchair. Now, the funny part. The only way to get into our house via this method was up a hill around the back of the house. Keep in mind, I had surgery on my shoulder about 2 months ago… yet stubbornly I pushed him around the back of the house, up the hill, all 6′4″, 200 pounds of him. I think I was going on pure adrenaline, plus, what choice did I really have?

To make a long story slightly shorter, we got in, I went to pick up his drugs and he was able to sleep the rest of the night. Today has still been torture for him. He still can’t walk and is barely getting relief from the pain medications. Monday really can’t get here quickly enough.

I finally began the #17 project from the Filatura Di Crosa, Fall/Winter 2004 Collection. I decided to go with the Debbie Bliss Chunky Cashmerino. I was about 3″ into the k2 p2 rib at the bottom, when I found a dropped stitch near the bottom of the cables. UGH…I HATE to :frog: but it seemed like it was throwing off the cables slightly. In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the best project to bring to work on while waiting in the hospital. I was ok initially, but the day ended up being much longer than expected (I’ll detail that in my next post!) If it weren’t for the frogging, I might have even finished it yesterday.

Today started with taking Bodhi and Loki to the kennel. We figured I would probably be gone all day tomorrow since Jim is having his surgery and I hate to leave the dogs home all day. Plus, Jim may get to come home Friday night but will probably be pretty out of it. It’ll should be easier on him without the dogs getting in the way. Loki is still SUCH a puppy and has a habit of getting wound up in the evening. Back to the dogs…why can’t they be “normal”?? ? Bodhi has hated being in the car since we brought him home from the shelter. He did get car sick, but he should be over that by now! It’s always a struggle for me to get him in the car. He back away, sits and just won’t come for anything. Not even BACON! He looked tortured the whole way. Loki just laid down on the seat like a good boy.

On the way home, I hit Home Depot for the supplies to paint the front door frame. Love that store! The conditions were almost too perfect to paint…a slight breeze and hot with reasonable humidity. I really had to do it quickly because it was drying so fast.

Finally, made dinner and got organized for tomorrow. I have to be up at 4:30 a.m. to take Jim to the hospital so having everything laid out will make it much easier.